3. Illinois can’t seem to stay healthy
It has been a weird season for the Illinois basketball program. It all started with nearly every player from the Elite 8 squad departing the team.
Ty Rodgers ended up redshirting, which made things even more complicated. Finally, the season got here and everything seemed to be going well. That was until the health issues started to arise.
Kasparas Jakucionis went down with a left arm injury. That was the start of the decline of the Illini. We then dropped the USC game, and he would return for the contest against Indiana.
Illinois then had to deal with Tomislav Ivisic having mono. The big man had the illness in the loss to Michigan State. He then had to sit out multiple games after that as he was getting better.
The Illini had a nice comeback win over Ohio State on Sunday. This was Ivisic’s first game back, and Illinois started to click. Wednesday rolled around, and Illinois dealt with health issues once again.
Fans got the news that Illinois would be missing a key piece in Tre White. He is dealing with an illness, so he wasn’t going to play. That wasn’t the only blow to Illinois’ health on Wednesday.
Illinois was fighting and had a chance to clip Rutgers, but in the game, Ivisic once again had issues. He came down with a rebound and twisted his ankle. The big man tried to give it another go, but he didn’t have it in him.
The 2024-25 campaign had and still has so much promise, but Illinois can’t stay healthy. If we can get everyone on the court at the same time, then we could go deep in March. But that seems like a big ask at this point.